Where to start? Chomsky?
Or I could put it another way. In principal, pure unadulterated idealistic principal - vote to leave. In practical, pragmatic terms - vote to stay.
The EU has always been a friend of Capital, an institution to protect the needs of finance and the rich. This is why the mainstream Left, when we had one in the 1970's, lined up to vote 'No' to entry. Since then, times have changed. As have expectations. We are so buried deep now in the dominant culture, everything seen from a hegemonic perspective imposed by a ruling class drunk on the defeat of communism, which they see as the victory of capitalism, that we can't even trust ourselves to envisage change on our own terms. So workers rights enshrined in European Law become a big stick to beat the Left into the submission of staying. We are afraid to leave, afraid the minute we do these rights will be taken away from us, and without hope or belief that we can reinstate these things, or better, on our own terms, with our own self-determination, away from the bosses of European capital.
And look who we line up with if we go for Brexit. The extreme right. UKIP and Farage. Nutters from the fringes of the Tory party. And look who we line up with if we vote Bremain (boy are these terms shit). The IMF. Goldman Sachs. Cameron et al.
Devil and the deep blue sea.
I believe in socialism. Hell, to Droppers I'm probably a dangerous Maoist. So I believe in public ownership of the means of production. Nationalisation of industries, all of which have been taken out of nationalisation in the last 30 years. Article 106 of the TFEU (Treaty on the functioning of the EU), it is argued, makes renationalisation illegal. It goes against the free movement rules, which are dressed up as a freedom but actually can be seen to serve, when it comes to economics, as the constitutional protection of capitalism, making it harder, if not impossible, for individual national governments to pursue their own economic policies outside of a narrow range of basically neo-liberal options. Not good. Not to me anyway.
Look what happened to Greece when they veered from the road. Stitched. Although Yanis Varoufakis has actually said now is the wrong time to leave.
I don't know. If Chomsky doesn't know, I don't feel so bad about not knowing. But it's a frightening thought that a referendum of people who mostly have less of a fucking clue than even I do are going to decide this.
(Dying revolutionary lefties) the SWP (not your SWP, America) used to have a saying "Neither Washington, nor Moscow". It feels like this is "Neither Westminster, nor Brussels". But realistically where would that leave us?
It's hard to make a case for either, convincingly.
